


Something To Fight For

by JPlash



Category: Black Dagger Brotherhood - J. R. Ward
Genre: F/M, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-28
Updated: 2008-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-20 16:10:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JPlash/pseuds/JPlash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zsadist pays a lonely, undetected visit to Charleston the night that he gets out of Havers' clinic. Is Bella lost to him forever? Or can he make himself good enough to earn her friendship, if nothing more?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something To Fight For

**Author's Note:**

> A _Lover Awakened_ (Book 4) fic, the night that Zsadist leaves Havers' clinic, goes to Charleston and decides not to give the necklace back…just yet. A turning point. An awakening, one might say ;D

It wasn't an effort for Z to find Bella. His blood was still thick in her system. He wasn't about to ask Phury to find Charleston on a map for him, but Wrath had said the place was in South Carolina, and he knew roughly where that was. With a direction to work off, finding her took seconds. Moments later, he stood outside what had to be her gate.

His eyes scanned the high walls, irises glowing golden yellow in the dark, the yellow he still saw as Phury's, not his. Nothing like the compound's security, he frowned, but a wall was better than nothing. No alarm on the boundary. Nothing on the barrier. _Shit_. So Charleston was safer than Caldwell. Didn't mean he wanted Bella with fuck all security like this. Didn't mean he liked that one fucking bit. Zsadist leapt the wall where the shadows were deepest. The house looked pretty much like he'd thought it would from the white tiled roof and the white steel spikes and the white curtained windows poking above the wall from the street. Big. White. Glowing lower windows, glass almost to the floor. White steel boxes above the glass for good steel shutters. That was something, at least. The sun wasn't about to get her. What must once have been one of those big fancy verandahs had been walled in for a vestibule. So the house hadn't been built for vampires. He hoped it was good enough. He hoped the makeshift was good enough for her.

Lights flickered through the windows – candles going out in one room, lighting in the left corner, the one closest to him. Some kind of sitting room. He shrank against the wall before realizing it was white. _Shit. Some cover that would be._ He inched into the shadow of a tree. Easy. This place really wasn't set up against intruders, damn it. He glanced again at the candles being lit…lit by two _doggen_. That was…good. He swallowed again, for the way-too-many-th time tonight. Two good _doggen_ would care properly for any guest of the house, whether the aristocratic pieces of shit living in a place like this respected Bella as she deserved or not. And…all the candles…the light…the white…it looked…right. It reminded him of Bella's farmhouse. Clean, light, all that shit. The place looked…warm? Fuck, he didn't really know what Bella liked, but he thought this looked kinda like it. She'd probably like this. And that was good. _Damn_. He had to stop saying that. 'That is good'. Was that all he could fucking say? Damnit, what else was there to say? She didn't want him, which was as it should be. It had taken _days_ , not even weeks but five fucking days, maybe less, for her to regret being with him. To regret what had been the best twenty-six hours of Z's life. It was good that she was away from Caldwell. It was good that she was in a place like this. It was all good. It felt like shit.

He fingered the heel of a dagger with one hand and the string of diamonds in his pocket with the other. He just needed to see her. That was all. Just once. If he could just see her eyes, see her face, see her smile one more time, then he'd decide. Really. If she looked okay, if she looked like she wouldn't cry, then he'd knock on the door and ask to see her. He'd hand her the diamonds. Apologise properly for letting her get tangled up in all the shit that she had. Apologise the best he could for failing to _ahvenge_ her. Tell her…tell her he thought she was…really…strong, yeah, really strong for doing it herself, even though he wished she hadn't had to. Yeah. She'd like that. She was strong. Stronger than most of the stick up arse aristocracy. Independent, sort of, he thought. Yeah. A real female of worth. Strong. Smart. Beautiful. Kind. Absolutely fucking gorgeous.

He groaned. He couldn't stand in the shadows of her garden getting ready to apologise for ever coming near her and think about fucking her. Or…'making love to her', she said. Then. Whatever. Fuck. That was just…fuck. That was the kind of bastard he was meant to be trying not to be. He tried to focus on other things. The look in her eyes as she held her blood to his mouth and let him feed—no, made him feed. That fierceness. The calm, the bravery, the nerve of her with a gun to the _lesser_ 's head. Looking him in the eye.

The past flickered and he felt the familiar drag of shame crawling over his lungs. He couldn't have looked _her_ in the eye. It had been pure raging instinct to hack her head off her body. He couldn't have done it all calm like that. Stopped. Even…the way Bella had called him. Called him closer. He couldn't think how her skin must have crawled. He didn't want to. It was only one more way he was too fucking weak. She'd had to take that bastard piece of shit, that slayer monster in her arms because Z was too weak to take him out. And she'd been stronger than he could have been by a million fucking miles. Oh yeah, she deserved _way_ more than him. And this was going to be the last time that he reared his ugly head into her life. His eyes didn't leave the long windows. The _doggen_ were gone now, but if the room had been lit, then someone must be coming in. And Bella was in this house.

He would stick to what he'd said, he growled in his mind. What he'd thought while he got ready to come here. If she looked like she wouldn't cry, then he'd speak to her. Just this one last time. For her sake. Tell her how…how incredible she was. He nodded tightly to himself before he could lose his nerve. Make sure she knew…that he was glad she was somewhere…good. He cursed again under his breath at the word. That he knew she'd find a _good_...mate. Fuck. Maybe not say that. Not if he couldn't do it without growling like that. Fucking bonding crap. He shook his head. It didn't clear. He struggled to focus on the plan. If she didn't look…okay. If she still looked…like what? If she looked hurt. If she looked fragile. If she looked like every other female with any sense did when they saw him. Then he wouldn't inflict himself on her again. He'd still knock, but when one of the _doggen_ answered, he'd give over the necklace and ask them to give it to Bella. Tell her it arrived in the mail or some shit. Yeah. That would be it. And then he'd dematerialise straight back out of there and stay the fuck away from her like he should have from the start.

That was the plan. That was what was going to happen. He was going to do this right. For once. And then she came into view through the glass. And everything stopped. She was wearing a long dress, tight up top round her perfect breasts then all wavy in the skirt. He'd never seen her wear a dress before. She looked…regal. Aristocratic. Beautiful. He swallowed again. Deep blue silk. All flowy and shit. Like something Marissa would wear. _Idiot._ That was how aristocrats dressed. He just didn't speak to aristocrats. They didn't speak to him.

The train of thought disappeared as she walked toward the window. Blue. Like her eyes. Just the same colour as her eyes. They were too far away to see, really, but he could. He could see her beautiful blue eyes just the same colour as her silky dress, and he knew it would be soft like her skin and her lips and her sex and she'd feel warm through it in his arms. Her hand touched the glass. Was she smiling? No. No, she wasn't smiling. Not at all. It hurt him more than he could have believed that she wasn't smiling. Did it hurt it because she wasn't happy, or because by his own rules he couldn't call on her and speak to her if she looked that way? Both, maybe. Her long, fine fingers trailed down the glass to fall back at her side. He wondered whether the dress was hers or whether she'd borrowed it from the female here. He wanted fiercely to know that. He wanted to know everything that was hers. Everything that was her. Every flicker of her deep, perfect eyes. Every thought in her head. Every second of her life. He wanted to shift her away from the window, 'cause next to the window was the most dangerous place in a house, even though he was right here and he wouldn't let anything hurt her. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to be there beside her. He wanted to sprint across this fucking neat-clipped lawn and bust his way into the house. Yeah, and throw broken glass all over her on the other side of the window. Great instinct, Zsadist. Fuck. Every instinct he had told him to run through that window and have her in his arms.

And then every fucking instinct had that growl tearing from his chest as a male appeared at her shoulder. _Fuck_. He held his mouth shut by force of will and made the roar he wanted to let out mute down to a low grunt. Calm the fuck down. There was a female at her other shoulder. Probably the male's _shellan_. He wasn't even touching Bella. Just standing near her. Nothing to go all animal about. _Fuck._ _Well fucking done, Zsadist_. Bella finds a _nice_ new home, looks out the window and finds the nasty bastard she's running away from growling and snarling at her friends. _Yeah, fucking fantastic Zsadist. Great fucking job._

The female smiled and said something Z couldn't hear as she pulled Bella away from the window. Half of him was satisfied that she wasn't so easily in range of anyone wandering the grounds.

Half of him wanted to tear the female apart for shifting Bella further away from him.

He gripped the tree trunk so hard his fingers left dents. The party of three remained within view of the window, and he silently thanked the Scribe Virgin for small mercies. Seated on little chairs with velvet on the cushions, round a little table just visible through the long window. A _doggen_ brought tea. It sat on the table and no one drank it. The female called for something, and the other _doggen_ brought a little basket which turned out to hold thread and sewing crap and some little clothes. Baby clothes. So the female was pregnant. He looked at her in detail for the first time, tearing his eyes from Bella's face. Yeah, she was pregnant. The bump was visible from here. She began pulling threads in and out and through the fabric. The male watched her like there was nothing else in the world. Bella looked awkward. Beautiful, but uncomfortable. Would Bella ever be pregnant? And what would she look like when she was? What would a baby of Bella's look like? Would it look just like her?

But it wouldn't. Not _just_ like her. 'Cause the young would have a father. Z gripped the tree again until he heard it crack, then gripped his leathers instead. Bella would be pregnant, and her young would look like some other male, some other male who would hold her and kiss her and who must have been inside her because fuck, that was how babies happened. And Z wanted to kill him.

He knew that he should go. He knew he should approach the door from the other side in case Bella saw him out the window, hand the necklace over to a _doggen_ , and get the hell out of there. But he couldn't. If he was never going to see her again, then fuck, he was at least going to stand here a while longer and remember how beautiful she looked with the candlelight on her skin and her eyes so bright and not having to worry about him being around.

And then, like a miracle he could never deserve, she smiled. No—even better—she laughed. Z wished he could hear it. He searched for the source of her joy…and felt a great fucking hole punch itself through his lungs. The male was talking quietly, smiling at his _shellan_ but smiling at Bella too. Gesturing with his hands. Telling a story? A joke? Reaching out to touch both their shoulders. Z felt like he was being torn in half, torn between the part of him that came alive again when she smiled and the part of him that screamed and crumbled all at once because it was another male making her do it.

By the time the male's hand was off his Bella, Z's head was going wild and his instincts were ripping him to pieces. What if…what if the male intended to take her as a second mate? What if that was the point of her moving here? Wrath had called the male distant family of Bella's, but everyone in the aristocracy was related and it had never stopped them mating before. Z gripped his chest with his hands and struggled to control himself. He would kill the male. He would kill anyone who disrespected his Bella that way. Bella deserved more than that. Bella deserved better than that. Bella was no one's second. Bella deserved to be someone's entire life. Bella deserved to be worshipped. And any male who went near her had better be one-hundred fucking percent devoted to her. Every second of his life had better be about making her happy. And there had fucking better not be some other female getting in the way of his caring for her. He didn't let go of his chest as he looked through the window again. Was it possible? The way the male looked at his pregnant female, it looked as though he was mated deep, didn't look as though he'd want a second. But a female with child was always in danger. Possibly the male was considering taking Bella if his female died of the child. In case his female died? Z pushed himself to the ground as the desire to kill overwhelmed him. _Fuck_. He had to control his anger. He had told Phury he would control his anger. And damnit, Bella was in there. He couldn't burst into her house and start ripping shit to pieces.

The facts wouldn't stay cold 'cause they were too fucking nasty. It would be just like the _glymera_ , he thought. Her brother would know by now that she'd been serviced in her needing. She'd already been shunned once, and that would just top it off. Knowing the fucking _glymera_ , none of them would want her now. It'd be just like them to mate her off as a second, and to some wealthy no one fuck in Charleston at that. This wasn't how it was meant to happen, damn it. She was meant to find some good, worthy, strong civilian who didn't give a shit about all their rules and crap. Someone who could look after her properly. Not…not to be mated off like trash. To a male she clearly didn't care for.

That calmed him a little, though it shouldn't have. She didn't care for him. It was clear enough looking at her. She didn't feel anything for the male. Z forced his eyes still enough to watch, closely as he could bear. The male didn't touch her again. His attention was on his _shellan_. Bella's was on her hands. But she smiled again when he said something else, and as much as he hated her reacting that way to the other male, logic was beginning to kick in. Bella was not the kind of female who went down without a fight. She'd seemed fine with the whole Charleston thing when she'd mentioned it to him at Havers', and if her reaction to her brother's attempt to _sehclude_ her was anything to go by, she wouldn't have just come down here with a smile if they'd been trying to mate her off to a male she didn't love. And she wouldn't be smiling at him now. No, Z could just imagine the crap she'd give a male who tried to take her that way. And he was proud. Yeah. Damn fucking proud.

Listening to his breathing slow, the urge to rip the male's head off subsiding, Z looked back through the window. So the chances of the male courting her for a second were pretty damn low. In which case…what was he? She smiled at him. She laughed at his jokes. She sat with him and spent time with him and was around him. So he was…a friend? Z felt a deep pang of jealousy. Yeah. The male was Bella's friend. And while Z hid behind trees in her fucking yard, he was sitting by her and looking at her and talking to her and listening to her voice. And dear Virgin in the Fade, Z wanted that. He wanted that more than should have been possible. It wouldn't matter that he couldn't lie with her. It wouldn't matter that she didn't want him that way anymore. It wouldn't even matter that she regretted being with him. If he could just sit by her. If he could just…see her. Keep seeing her. Talk to her. Not lose her like this. Not lose her forever. If he could just be her friend.

The strength of that desire was what he was unprepared for. The need. The aching, desperate need to take that. The pain that filled him at the thought of walking out of here. The unbearable prospect of this being the last time he saw that smile. And the way it was so much more unbearable balanced against the idea that he could make her smile. The way it hit him so much harder against the stupid pipe dream that he could be her friend.

He leaned against the tree for support, feeling pathetically weak. It creaked a little. He ignored it. What a joke. Her friend? What could he possibly offer her? He couldn't make her smile like that male did. He didn't know jokes, and he didn't know stories that you repeated to females. He couldn't fucking read or write, and he couldn't do anything else either, except for fight. Yeah. Rip shit to pieces. Great after dinner entertainment. There was nothing he could do for her. Nothing he could share with her. And how the fuck would he look sitting round a little table like that with a cup of tea? Like some kind of monster clapped in the middle of her perfect world. Some nasty fucking monster messing with her perfection. He didn't belong there. Phury belonged there. Rhage belonged there. Havers belonged there. Whoever the damn male was sitting at that table belonged there. The whole fucking idea was ridiculous.

And yet, still, hell, he wanted it so fucking badly.

He grasped for straws like something desperate. He could look different. Yeah, he couldn't kill the scar, but his eyes were already an improvement. _Right?_ The yellow eyes. Phury's eyes. They sure as hell beat his old black ones. So maybe there were other things he could change. Even Phury had looked pretty butt ugly without his hair. Maybe Z could grow his hair. Yeah it'd feel…crap…maybe…but… Bella was worth it. Bella was so worth it. So he could grow his hair. What else? What else did Phury have that he didn't? He ate. Well, that was already on track. The eating thing was part of project 'stop fucking with Phury'. He was doing okay, for all of the day that he'd been on it. He felt like he'd already put on a few pounds, just eating the one proper meal he'd done today. He wasn't really sure how much he was meant to gain, but he could find out. Ask Havers, maybe. How much he was meant to eat. Bulk up like the rest of the Brotherhood. That had to help. He could even…he could even feed. His fists clenched so hard they hurt, but he held the thought tight. He didn't like the idea of feeding from a female of his own species who wasn't Bella, especially now that he'd tasted her intoxicating, delicious, glorious blood, but he could, if it would make him look…more…more like someone Bella could receive in her home and not be ashamed of. He knew Rhage had a female of the Chosen who came to the compound. Maybe he could do that too. Or Phury could help him find one. Phury had to feed from someone. He was only mildly surprised that he didn't have any idea who. So he could do that. Eat. Feed. Grow his hair.

Then…well…then he'd look just like Phury, but with the scar. That couldn't be so bad, could it? Lots of males had scars. Not like this one, but…he fixed his eyes on Bella's face and couldn't think of anything but how it would feel to sit by her like that and see her smile. And she might. If he could look like that. She just might.

Suddenly everything in his brain was on fire. He felt more focused than he'd ever been, even on the lesser who'd hurt her. He was going to learn to read. He was going to make it work. He'd wanted to learn for Phury, but this was something else. He was _going_ to learn. Mary had already said yes, and he was going to shove all his crap out of the way and do it. He was going to listen to her. Try real fucking hard. Yeah. It wouldn't be right to call on Bella this way, illiterate, incompetent, about as skilled as a fucking slave. Rotting like the slave they'd made him. _No._ If he wanted to try for friendship, he had to stop being a slave. He had to stand up and be a fucking warrior. He had to act his blood. If he could be like that, if he could actually fucking act like every other member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, then…then it wouldn't be so shameful for her to see him. To let him in her house. To…talk to him. To smile.

So he would learn to read. And he'd ask Phury, he'd ask Phury what else he should do. What other things warriors were meant to know how to do. He'd probably be a shitty learner, but he'd go as fast as he could. Mary said she was okay with him being crap, so maybe she could help him with all of it, not just the reading. He'd find a way to learn as fast as he could and he'd come back here and knock on her door before some other male had the chance to take her away. So what if she didn't want to lie with him anymore? So what if she didn't want him as _her_ male. He would be her friend. He would make himself good enough to be her friend. And if he did it real fast, then maybe he could be her friend long enough before she found another male that he'd still be able to see her, even when she was mated. The thought made him violent again, but he focused on the good with every fucking bit of energy he had. Controlling the anger had to be part of it. She wasn't going to see him that way again. He would accept that she would find another male. But he would make sure he was good enough, he would make sure he was a good enough friend that that other male wouldn't dare stop her seeing him. And that would be enough. That would have to be it. That would be so much better than nothing. He would be her friend. He would protect her. He would find more ways than anyone else to make her smile.

He felt the strength surge through him as she laughed again in the window, at the little table. He would make himself good enough to sit there with her. And then he would bring back the necklace. He would bulk up, look better, learn to read—fuck, he'd learn to drink tea the way they did—and then he'd knock on the door and ask to see her to return her necklace. And maybe, maybe when she saw him, she'd see that he'd changed. Maybe he'd look different enough for her to let him in. Maybe she'd offer him tea. And if she did, if she gave him that chance, then damn it, he wouldn't make her regret it this time. He'd show her how much he could change. He'd be worthy of her friendship. And he would see that gorgeous, radiant smile every chance he could. That would be his life. That would make everything worth it.

Zsadist took one more look through the window. Bella's eyes flashed suddenly out to the darkness. So bright. So blue. Shining the colour of her dress. The colour of the ocean. The colour of the sky. He shrank against the tree trunk, sure she couldn't see him, but feeling exposed nonetheless. And she couldn't. She looked away a moment later. But it was enough. She was all he needed. She was his everything. And he had a fucking long road ahead if he was going to be good enough for her. He memorised the colour of her eyes. He memorised the curve of her lips. He memorised her sitting like an angel in that window. And then he dematerialised back to the compound, necklace still clutched in one hand.

The moon was bright on the stark, white courtyard. He opened the familiar door into the vestibule. Time to start work. _Fuck_. If only he knew where to begin. The inner door opened easily for him as he showed his face to the camera. And there on the grand staircase were Phury and the kid, John, his twin staring at the young male like he'd just seen a ghost. Both jumped. Both looked at him. Zsadist cleared his throat, feeling awkward. New start, remember? Self-improvement? He cleared his throat again and wondered whether this was a hopeless mission. But it couldn't be. He wouldn't let it.

"Uh…" He cleared his throat once more, feeling ridiculous. "Oh, hey, Phury, John."

Well, at least the kid didn't look scared of him. That had to count for something.

Phury had something weird about him, but Z was too distracted to pin it down. "So, Z, ah, where you coming from?"

Z's chest tightened compulsively. He couldn't tell Phury why he was doing this. He couldn't tell anyone that he'd been spying in her garden. What was a normal response? "A little trip. A little trip far away." Yeah, that was good. Come on. Keep talking. Relate. Communicate. "What's doing?"

Phury gestured shakily to John. Z wondered whether the brother needed more red smoke. "We're going to go work on John's positions in the gym."

The gym. Fighting. That he could do. He'd even volunteered to do the teaching gig, remember? This was his chance. Come on. He closed the door behind him. His voice felt shaky. "How about I join you?" No. He couldn't afford to shake. He took a step forward. "Or…maybe I should put it this way. Can I join you?"

They stared at him. Z swallowed awkwardly. Was he really that fucking weird? Was it so huge for him to say something…normal? His jaw clenched. Yeah. Yeah, it was. But not anymore. This was a start. If they looked so surprised, then he must have made a change, and that was a good fucking start. The kid nodded mutely while Phury continued to gawk. It took him several seconds longer to recover. "Yeah, of course, my brother. Come with us. You're always…welcome."

Well fuck that. Welcome. He couldn't imagine being welcome to anyone but Phury. Phury was the only one who could look at this and welcome it. But he would be. Dear Virgin, if it killed him, he would be.

Zsadist crossed the brilliant mosaic floor, too many colours in one place. He swallowed heavily. And he said the words. "Thanks. Thanks a lot."

The three of them headed for the underground passageway. As they walked to the training centre Zsadist glanced at the brother and the kid and thought that life sure was good at throwing around crap. Phury had been landed with him. The kid had just lost, from what Z could tell, the only three people he had in one nasty fucking hit. And he…well, crap was what his life was about. And yet, here they were. Three brothers. Making their way. Trying their best. Keeping on fighting. Eight brothers, if they counted the lot of them. Eight brothers fighting. Because they were strong. Because they were free. Because through it all, through all the crap, somehow…they had something to fight for. Yeah. Something to fight for.

And fuck, if that didn't feel good.


End file.
